A review by jessicafavor
Hairpin Curves: An LGBTQ Romance by Elia Winters
2.0
I have never read any romance novels aside from the Twilight series (and I’m not going to brand the entire genre based on my experience reading one series as an adolescent). So, pretty much, I had no idea what to expect when I started reading Hairpin Curves.
Overall, it was a nice read. It was gentle, it was sweet, it was… I don’t want to say boring, because I finished it in two days and didn’t struggle to keep reading, but there was definitely some blandness to the story that watered down the flavor of my reading experience.
The source of this blandness is the characterization. It took a long time — more than half of the book, actually — for me to feel that Megan and Scarlett were “real” people and not just slapped-together collections of stereotypes. Scarlett is the outgoing, impulsive one, and Megan is the introverted, steady, stuck-in-her-routines one. That’s all they are for over 50% of Hairpin Curves. However, after that midway point the two women start to open up to each other (and the reader) about who they really are and why they act they way they do, and then they become more complex and likeable. If they had been complex right from the start of the novel, I think I would have been much more entranced with this book.
There is also a lot of back-and-forth with how Megan and Scarlett feel toward each other. Some of this is jarring and feels odd and unrealistic — Scarlett complains about how everything about Megan and Megan’s life is “beige” and “boring” one minute, and then mentally describes her as cute the next, for example. The main conflict of Hairpin Curves is Megan and Scarlett’s journey towards a resolution for their feelings for each other, so I suppose the amount of back-and-forth makes sense. (This is where my lack of prior romance reading experience is tripping me up, I think).
The writing, however, was definitely enjoyable if not particularly flashy, and I liked the little adventures and moments of humor Scarlett and Megan got to share during their road trip. I really appreciated how they weren’t just in lust with each other, but really did repair their broken friendship and take the first steps towards individual positive growth.
Overall, it was a nice read. It was gentle, it was sweet, it was… I don’t want to say boring, because I finished it in two days and didn’t struggle to keep reading, but there was definitely some blandness to the story that watered down the flavor of my reading experience.
The source of this blandness is the characterization. It took a long time — more than half of the book, actually — for me to feel that Megan and Scarlett were “real” people and not just slapped-together collections of stereotypes. Scarlett is the outgoing, impulsive one, and Megan is the introverted, steady, stuck-in-her-routines one. That’s all they are for over 50% of Hairpin Curves. However, after that midway point the two women start to open up to each other (and the reader) about who they really are and why they act they way they do, and then they become more complex and likeable. If they had been complex right from the start of the novel, I think I would have been much more entranced with this book.
There is also a lot of back-and-forth with how Megan and Scarlett feel toward each other. Some of this is jarring and feels odd and unrealistic — Scarlett complains about how everything about Megan and Megan’s life is “beige” and “boring” one minute, and then mentally describes her as cute the next, for example. The main conflict of Hairpin Curves is Megan and Scarlett’s journey towards a resolution for their feelings for each other, so I suppose the amount of back-and-forth makes sense. (This is where my lack of prior romance reading experience is tripping me up, I think).
The writing, however, was definitely enjoyable if not particularly flashy, and I liked the little adventures and moments of humor Scarlett and Megan got to share during their road trip. I really appreciated how they weren’t just in lust with each other, but really did repair their broken friendship and take the first steps towards individual positive growth.